


Red Hairing

by archea2



Series: Old Tales Twice Told [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Canon Crossover, Crossover, Edgar Poe, Friendship, Gen, Humor, Paternal Lestrade
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-24
Updated: 2013-04-24
Packaged: 2017-12-09 09:34:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/772695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/archea2/pseuds/archea2
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a cold grounds Sherlock home, John calls Lestrade to the rescue.</p><p>Crossover with ACD's "Red-Headed League" and Edgar Poe's "Murders in the Rue Morgue".</p>
            </blockquote>





	Red Hairing

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a Halloween prompt on the Sherlockmas community. 
> 
> Neither fic nor title are here to poke fun at red-haired people. They're just poking fun at Sherlock.

Autumn, if you asked Sherlock, had forfeited all of its duties by failing to deliver the promised mists and mellowness.

Mist was the ideal atmospheric chemistry for a stalker of the criminal classes. Mellowness Sherlock associated vaguely with Mrs Hudson’s parsnip soup, which helped placate John when he came in late from work only to discover Sherlock’s latest experiment with their loo sewers. A perfect combination.  
  
Sadly, the mists had turned into a steady drizzle and a vicious cold had caught up with Sherlock before he could catch the killer du jour. The rest of the agenda had degenerated fairly quickly from that point. John, on his best officer-and-doctor's behaviour, had grounded Sherlock to home base. Mrs Hudson had fished out an old recipe of rum jellies and experimented on every food colouring comprised between ultraviolet and sanguine because they were "all in season, dear, and will pep you up nicely". She had been less than happy to find a pepped-up Sherlock firing at her precious bat sconce - and as little amused by Sherlock’s ripost that he was showing some seasonal spirit.  
  
Mycroft’s contribution to the general zest and jollity had been a get-well-soon card featuring Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Sherlock had pinned it to the wall and used the bears as his next firing target until John noticed that they all bore names – Lestrade’s, Mrs Hudson’s and his – in small curlicued characters. Sherlock had gritted his teeth and fired a bullet into his brother's signature.   
  
That was when Little Bear had begun to worry and, acting on Mamma Bear’s wise cue, called Papa Bear to the rescue.  
  
"And how is our resident cold case?" Lestrade asked with a robust geniality he knew to be all too annoying as he walked into the living room with an armful of files.  
  
From the couch, Sherlock opened a glassy eye and signaled for the offerings to be deposited on the coffee-table, next to Mrs Hudson’s latest puce concoction.  
  
"Afraid they’re small beer," Lestrade said, accepting John’s handshake and John’s coffee in succession. "I did my best, but there’s nothing much going on these days. Still, October’s on its last legs, so cheer up – we'll have a nice gutted-out pumpkin for you yet."  
  
Sherlock’s rebuking hiss was followed by a ten-minute pause, during which the two Bears commented the latest football results _sotto_ _voce_. Lestrade had just appropriated the skull to reconstitute Mr Sagna’s brilliant goal line clearance when a hoarse sigh called the game to an end.  
  
"Primary school stuff, and I'm generous. Wife, wife, husband, wife, brother-in-law, hamster, wife. Yes, Lestrade, hamster. The wirings were clearly gnawed prior to the electrocution, and the presence of an eight-year single child is indicative of – oh, what’s the use. Just go and arrest the little animal, that’s what you do best."  
  
"Look, I know they’re not quite up Baker Street," Lestrade said pleasantly. "But it’s really all I can do. Unless –"   
  
Sherlock, now entwined to the sofa cushions like a fin-de-siècle young rajah, turned his face sharply. "Unless?"  
  
"Well – there’s that funny French case. But I’m really not allowed to tell you about it, even less show you the file. This one is so red-taped it’s beginning to look like Christmas on the run. I wasn’t even supposed to investigate, the DPG had called dibs on it, but —"  
  
"The Diplomatic Protection Group?" Sherlock sat up, suddenly alert. "I wonder if – oh yes, that would be Mycroft to a T. Have the case transfered to you so you’d mention it to me and I'd —"  
  
"No, no." Lestrade raised a placid hand. "Don’t fret, he's not going to bother you about this one. Fact is, he said he’d, er, be glad to offer his own assistance as long as discretion remained the better part of discretion."  
  
"Did he now. Yes, trust Mycroft’s podgy hand to steal the cake when he spots it. But I’m dead sure I can beat him to it, even without a file." Sherlock turned to Lestrade, lifting his own long-fingered hand with languid sovereignty. "All right, give me."  
  
"Look, I don’t think —"  
  
"Wouldn’t you like to impress my brother, Lestrade? He's bound to express his gratitude if you spare him the time and bother of a trip to the Quai d’Orsay."  
  
"Well —" Lestrade dipped his nose into his mug, rubbing the back of his silver-cropped neck pensively. "If John and you swear to keep it hush-hush... it’s a weirdo, this one, and I could use a word from the wise."  
  
"Shoot ahead," John said, filling their mugs again.  
  
"Right then. Well, it’s about this woman, Madame – I’ll call her Madame L. The French Ambassador’s first wife, who happened to settle in London with their daughter years before he got his marching orders over here. Seems he'd ditched her for a pretty young thing on his very first posting, but that was so long ago no one would have thought of connecting them if he hadn’t visited her new flat in Knightsbridge the day before the murders. And they were pretty grisly, let me tell you. The old lady, she had her throat slit with a cutter, and the girl was – she was - Christ, I really don’t know if –"   
  
"Was  _what_?" Sherlock croaked out testily. "Do stop pussyfooting, Lestrade. Raped? Maimed? Fed to a pack of man-eating hamsters?"  
  
"Stuck up the chimney," Lestrade answered in a blanched whisper. He looked around, nicked a tube test from Sherlock’s usual clutter and proceeded to demonstrate with his coffee spoon. "Like this, head first, after she’d been —"  
  
"Strangled?" John's first, quiet contribution since the start of the tale. Lestrade flashed him a sharp look.  
  
"Well, yeah, strangled. Had a thought for you, Sherlock, when I saw her at the Morgue – her neck bore those very, _very_ odd fingerprints, very large and set very apart. Way too apart to belong to a decently normal hand. But it can’t have been the Golem if Moriarty offed him after the pip-pip fiasco, can it?"  
  
"Oh, the pip-pip fiasco did him in all right," Sherlock drawled. "A girl in the fireplace? Interesting. At the very least, it could provide John with a new mindbreaking title. A Study in Flue, John?"  
  
"You two swore —oh, fine, have your little joke. Anyway. We arranged for a few SOCOs to comb the place discreetly, and by the time I arrived, all I had to do was question the neighbours. And that’s when things got even more screwed up."  
  
He cast a quick glance at John and carried on. "Flat belongs to of those pre-War brick affairs they call a bijou residence in posh mags, which really means rotten acoustics and cig paper walls. So everyone heard the daughter cry out before she was strangled, and everyone heard a voice just before, in the flat, speaking in a foreign language. But they couldn't make up their minds on the lingo. One old biddy claimed it was Italian. Said she’d just been through a rerun of the  _Sopranos_  and would swear to it on her Ma's Bible. Another said it was German. Then there was Russian, French, German and, would you believe it, Scots."  
  
"I see. No, I don't." Sherlock, still settled in his lotus position, raised his fingers to his chin. "Any other data?"  
  
"Bits and bobs. They found an open window, so the murderer must have escaped via the roofs. Oh, and there was a tuft of hair clutched in Madame L’s hand – thick red hair. Well, I say red. Orange-ish, really."  
  
"All in season," John approved suavely from his chair.  
  
Sherlock’s fingers had begun a hasty tattoo on his chin. "Chimney. Girl. Girl up chimney. Diplomatic scandal – no, too blatant. But then, the whole thing is blatant. Overdramatized, perhaps, so it should be hushed up all the quicker. So is it the place they’re after, and the women were just an inconvenience? Ur-European lingo. Red hair – oh!  _Oooh_!"  
  
"You’re not running a fever, are you?" John tried to slip a hand under the moist curls, only to have it batted away by an impatient Sherlock. "We can’t have you on fire right now, chimney or no chimney."  
  
" _A Red-Headed League!_ " Sherlock exploded. " _That’s_ why no one could identify the voice – there were several of them, speaking in turn. Lestrade, you’re looking for a coterie of hoodlums led by a nine-foot man, Irish, not Scottish, with red hair and a case history of strangling tigers bare-handed. Good old Moran, always up for a lark."  
  
"But —"  
  
"John, you probably want to shut up. Lestrade, didn’t you say Madame L had just rented the place? They must have hidden something there, prior to her arrival. And when they came back for it, unaware that it had new tenants... Knightsbridge, is it? The name rings a...yes! The Lloyds robbery – Seb’s grapevine was buzzing with the news. You’d better start digging at the exact opposite spot to that chimney; put Donovan to it, she’s an expert in floor remodeling.  _Ha!_  I think I’ve given myself a sore throat, John; I’ll have that Ibuprofen now, with a cup of tea."  
  
One Ibuprofen and a rum-spiked Darjeeling later, Sherlock was snoring blithely among the cushions. John tucked the slim legs into a blanket and turned to Lestrade.  
  
"So. Are you going to tell him it was an orangutan all the time?"  
  
Lestrade sighed.  
  
"Nah, poor kid. Don’t think I’ll have the heart." The sigh bloomed into a grin. "Though I’ll admit that tricking the great Sherlock Holmes was one mighty treat. But Mycroft would claim my skin and bones for his next brolly if he found I’ve implicated him in my little joke."  
  
John chuckled.  
  
"Well, I owe you for this – the fun and even more, his first night's sleep in four days. Wanna grab a pint? We'll make it a Killian’s russet for cheers."  
  
"You’re on. And you can help me massacre  _The P_ _urloined Letter_ , in case he needs another bedtime story. I'm making that letter a photograph, by the way. This is the twenty-first century, mate – people don’t write love letters, they text each other cute little smileys."  
  
"So, a woman compromised by a photograph?"  
  
"D’you really think Sherlock would bother with that? No, the other way round – though we should keep the royal angle, I like it."  
  
"But wait, if it’s a King being compromised —"  
  
The old stairs squeaked as they grabbed their coats and padded down into the drizzle, sharing the same happy conspiratorial grin.


End file.
